New vehicles may be equipped with rigid safety bars affixed to the floor of the vehicle or assembled as an integral part of the seat between the top and bottom seat cushions. A car safety seat may be equipped with a mechanism, such as an attachment bar or tether strap, to secure to the rigid safety bar. As such, this provides an additional mechanism for securing a child safety seat in addition to the typically utilized vehicle seat belt. Such a safety bar may be an ISOFIX wire attachment. Safety Associations around the world are requiring such safety bars to be installed in newer vehicles. It is expected that by 2003 to 2004 every new vehicle will be equipped with such a safety bar.
There is concern for child safety when an air bag deploys into a forward facing child safety seat. In such instances, the air bag may cause considerable harm to the front facing child. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a sensor that detects when a child safety seat is installed. Upon sensing the presence of such a child seat, a proper control signal is sent to the vehicle control system in order to limit or prevent deployment of the air bag.